


English Opening

by weakinteraction



Category: Chess - Rice/Ulvaeus/Andersson
Genre: Gen, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-31
Updated: 2018-10-31
Packaged: 2019-08-06 14:25:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,909
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16389413
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/weakinteraction/pseuds/weakinteraction
Summary: Four conversations in hotel rooms.





	English Opening

**Author's Note:**

  * For [SegaBarrett](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SegaBarrett/gifts).



The knock at the door was a single loud rap, followed up by a pitter-patter of knuckles against wood when she didn't answer immediately.

Florence sighed and stepped backwards out of the wardrobe space where she'd been hanging her clothes. "Come in, Freddie."

He came in, looked around, then frowned. "You know, I think your room is a little bit bigger than mine. We should ask them to switch us."

Florence gave him the same look she did whenever he claimed he didn't want to play. "You know perfectly well they're both identical."

"Or we could--"

"No," Florence said firmly. "Think of what the papers would say." To say nothing of the fact that as far as she was concerned the on-again, off-again status of their personal rather than professional relationship was firmly in "off-again" territory at the moment.

"Ah, yes," Freddie said with a sigh. "The papers." The press interest in Freddie's match was much greater than either of them had expected. They were used to interview requests from the specialist chess publications and columns, and the occasional journalist writing a feature for a weekend supplement or similar, but they had touched down to find that Freddie's imminent arrival had made the news pages. The British press were calling the coming match "the second Battle of Hastings".

"I'm just glad that I seem to have flown below their radar," Florence said. Just glancing at the headlines, she had seen the way some of the lower-rent papers treated people who even casually entered into their interest, much worse than it had been when she was young. "Imagine if they'd found the people I went to school with and asked them what I was like then."

"I'm sure they'd only have positive things to say," Freddie said. Florence let that pass without comment, and he added, "So, how _does_ it feel to be back home?"

"This isn't home, Freddie," Florence said.

"Just another hotel, I know."

"No. I meant ..."

"Oh." For just a moment, he looked abashed. "Sorry." A thought occurred to him and he extended a finger towards her, not aggressively, but still breaking any sort of moment of emotional connection over their disrupted childhoods that she might have been imagining. "But it _is_ where we first met."

"We didn't meet _here_ ," Florence said. "That tournament you came to was in a draft exhibition hall in the Midlands that had only been open six months." She smiled mischievously. "You know, Carstairs was at that tournament too."

"My opponent? He was? Did I play him?"

"No; you would have met him in the semi-finals if I hadn't beaten you in the quarters."

"You know you got lucky."

Florence rolled her eyes. "You do remember that I signed up with you straight after?"

"So ... did you know him? Carstairs?"

"We played each other a few times now and then," Florence said.

"And did you _know_ him?"

" _No_ , Freddie. But I know his style of play well enough to help you prepare."

"Actually, it's late, I think I'm going to rest. Jet lag, you know?"

"Sure," Florence said. "It's not that you think you've jinxed any game we play tonight by remembering what happened when we met."

He was already heading for the door. "Goodnight, Florence."

"Goodnight, Freddie."

* * *

The next night, she went to his room.

When his only reply to her knock was a grunt, she knew to expect to see him stood over a board, puzzling at a position.

She went over to look. "What match is this from that the board got in that sort of state?" Had he finally started looking through the records of Carstairs's recent games like she'd been asking him to? No, she'd been studying those for months now; she would recognise the position.

"It's not a match position," Freddie said. He gestured at the side of the board, and Florence noticed a copy of _The Times_ open to one of the back pages.

"I thought you didn't hold with puzzles," Florence said.

"I don't, usually," Freddie said. "But this one's actually interesting. White to mate in fifteen, but I can't _quite_ see it. Sixteen, sure. Lots of ways to sixteen, but--"

"Could be a misprint," Florence said.

"That's a terrible thought," Freddie said. "That I've wasted three quarters of an hour because some British journalist can't type."

"Although ..." Florence started moving the pieces around, starting with bringing forward a knight that had been languishing on the first rank. Freddie joined in, playing Black's best responses.

Eventually, Florence knocked over the Black king with a flick of her finger.

"I lost count," Florence said. "Was that fifteen?"

"Don't patronise me," Freddie said. "You never lose count."

"So ... you ending up looking at this puzzle isn't about the fact you were studiously ignoring the other end of the paper," Florence said.

"I don't know what you're talking about," Freddie said unconvincingly. The match wasn't the lead story but had made the bottom of the page. The coverage was mostly about the fact that this was Carstairs's big chance to prove himself after winning the title by default after his Soviet opponent had pulled out amid a confected controversy about supposed irregularities in the previous match years before. But its description of Freddie had not exactly been flattering.

"So, do you want to get ready?"

"You really think we need to play some more?"

"I was thinking more about tomorrow's press conference."

"Ah, that's no big deal. Come on, let's play." He was already putting the pieces back to their starting positions.

It was the first time they'd played from the beginning rather than studying specific positions in a while. Instead of asking him which side he wanted to practice, Florence grabbed a couple of pawns and swapped them behind her back before holding them out in clenched fists, as though this was just the most casual of games.

Freddie smiled at her and went along with it, pointing at her left fist. Black.

They sat down and played a few moves. "You know," Freddie said when Florence brought her bishop out, "I think I'm still on East Coast time so ... what, is it two in the morning?"

"Stop making excuses and play," Florence said. "Carstairs favours Ruy Lopez -- uses it in more than half of his games. If he's been paying as much attention to you as you have to him, he'll almost certainly use it when he's White as he'll know that it your response to it as Black is by far your weakest."

Freddie made a face -- admitting the point without wanting to. "But still pretty good," he said. "I _am_ the US champion, after all."

"Wow, I had no idea," Florence said with heavy sarcasm. "Congratulations!" She looked at him sternly. "Now play."

* * *

"Do you _want_ them to hate you?"

The press conference -- much bigger than any Florence had seen previously -- had been a disaster, even by Freddie standards. His interest in the history of the venue had seemed to Florence to be patchy at best, until he'd come out with that line at the press conference about how the English had been defeated so badly that they'd rewritten their history to make that the start of it, and that that was exactly what would happen in this championship.

"They already do hate me; you saw yesterday's paper." Freddie's self-pity was never too far from the surface, but Florence had no patience for it right now.

"It's nothing to what they'll say tomorrow. The Brits have had two hundred years and change to come up with stereotypes of brash, uncouth Americans and you're playing right into them. You'll be front page news in _all_ the papers."

"They were always going to support their local guy," Freddie said. "And don't they say the Brits love an underdog? They must know that that's exactly what their guy is."

Florence sighed. "Well, you'll never find out now what they might have said if you'd been nice ..."

"I've seen the _Tribune_ and the NYT in the lobby. A few days old, but we'll see how the home press write it up eventually. They'll probably compare me to Tom Selleck or something."

"Oh yes, I'm sure they'll be _much_ more flattering," Florence said. "All about what a credit you are to US diplomacy."

"They'll like me when I win," Freddie said defiantly.

"I hope you're right," Florence said. She softened slightly. "But if you want to win, you need to practice."

* * *

It was late when Freddie knocked on her door, and Florence had to get up to unlock it. When it had got past ten o'clock and he still hadn't returned, she had given up on the idea of seeing him tonight. The fact that the first game of the match was tomorrow morning seemed to be as nothing to the delights of being wined and dined by a media mogul.

"I don't think you should trust him, Freddie," Florence said without preamble after letting him in.

"Who? Carstairs? Believe me, I don't. For all we know, he's talking just as much trash about me as I am about him, just behind the scenes, off the record ..." He was rambling; drunk, but still pretty lucid compared to some times she'd seen him.

"Carstairs is a perfectly nice guy and you know it," Florence said. "I'm talking about de Courcey."

Freddie turned round, seeming to sober up a notch in the process. "What's wrong with Walter?"

"Oh, so it's Walter now? You must have had a lovely evening together."

"We did," Freddie said. "He took me out to a very nice restaurant. _Very_ nice. I'd heard about British food but this place was actually good."

"And I'm sure it's not just that it was nice to have someone from the media being nice to you for a change."

"You should have come," Freddie said. He had asked de Courcey to invite her but she'd declined, pleading an impending headache. "You would have loved the fish."

"I prefer to keep my distance from the CIA," Florence said. "Insofar as I can."

"The CIA? But Walter works for Global Television ..."

"Oh, come _on_ , Freddie, everybody knows that Global is a CIA front." The look on his face made it clear that "everybody" did not, in fact, include him. "It's a way to broadcast propaganda into any country where they don't like the regime, and a useful cover for their agents. I'm sure there are plenty of people working there who are just doing their jobs and looking the other way when necessary, but trust me, Walter de Courcey is not one of them."

"... So why do you think he's interested in me?"

Florence looked at him, filled with sudden fondness despite her mounting exasperation. He really was that naïve. "Whatever reason the Russians had for pulling out of the last world championship match, they're going to change their minds sooner or later. You _are_ playing to be world champion, but you're also auditioning for the role of playing against the next Soviet wunderkind when they emerge from behind the Iron Curtain."

"And de Courcey wants it to be an all-American boy who represents the West?"

"I'm sure he's playing all the angles; he's probably in deep with his British counterpart making sure that he's working on Carstairs."

"So what should I do?"

She put a hand on his shoulder. "Just ... promise me you'll be careful who you get close to, Freddie."


End file.
